On our rumor sites we talk a lot about DSLR and Mirrorless cameras. But will these cameras still be here in future? Kirk Tuck and Petapixel posted two interesting article about an ongoing paradigm shift in the camera industry. Kir writes that the younger generation isn’t bound to the past film camera history. They think differently and they are not going to use DSLR or Mirrorless system cameras:

They are living the golden age of photography from their perspective, and their heroes in the field are names we don’t even know. This is a generation that values a personal vision that arrives as quickly as a phone call and has a much shorter half life than the one we experienced for our work, but then again, what doesn’t move faster these days?

Allen from Petapixel writes:

The future isn’t the Nikon Df, the Olympus OM-D EM-1 or the Fuji X100s. The future isn’t the Sony QX-100, which awkwardly attaches to my phone. The future for photographers willing to carry around a dedicated camera adopts paradigms from the phone. WiFi, GPS and a touch screen are built-in, and its open source software allows me to launch Instagram (or whatever app is the soup du jour) and have the camera automatically pair with my phone so I don’t have to do everything twice.

SAR’s note: Predicting the future is almost impossible. Even big marketing guys failed in that and they will keep failing in future. So this is just my pure instinct talking. In my opinion there will be always a big enough market for System Cameras. But these cameras will not look like old Film Cameras anymore and also act very differently and have completely different and new features. A couple of these new tech details will be discussed in future posts on SAR ;)

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so this generation doens’t are about different focal lengths anymore. Will it all be in one amazingly fast 10-500mm F1.0 transformer lens?
That a Nikon DF isn’t the future should be logic.
WIFI and GPS is already included in most cameras today, so where is the news? Direct upload? Even the A7 can do that when you connect it to a Wifi or your phone. Built in 3G is available in Samsung Galaxy camera, so all available today already.

Maria

True. These writers are describing what happened two years ago. It may be all new for them, which would fit in my view that most photographers are very traditional, old-fashioned. Very gear-oriented, instead of photo/photographer centred. They are limiting themselves by not questioning current DSLR gear. Instead we should ask ourselves what would I like to do to make my creative photo’s. Next choose your equipment that fits best.

gana

Those 2 articles are pure mentaly bullshit. point.

ronin

That’s fine and all, but its predictions on the future are predicated on what the future is not, rather than what it is. That’s the easy part.

The masses want smaller, easier cameras that are simpler to use without a lot of thinking? I think George Eastman knew this in the 1880s, we’re just quibbling on the technology specifics.

And what are the names of these famous heroes whose names we don’t know? Would love to check them out as long as they’re not yet more generic photos by hipsters taken of random people from behind while they’re waiting to cross the street.

AndrewR

This isn’t the future, it’s just the lowest common denominator. Social media has given people a voice, but 95% of the content is the same dross that 20 years ago would have ended up in 6×4 albums from boots that were printed and looked at once…

LensIsAll

This isn’t a future. It’s what happens right now.
Majority of photographs taken in a world are made with cellphones. Whatever ppl want to admit it or not.
What we do here is like owners of Bugatti complaining that majority of ppl choose WV Golf. Or a bus.

Andrew

Is majority of worthwhile photos are taken with mobile cameras? I doubt so.

LensIsAll

Define “worthwhile”. For people who make them and/or their friends/family – they’re definitely worthwhile – even for a sole reason of memories they store.

ko

Of course a cell phone cannot match the IQ of a mirrorless or DSLR. Worthwhile photos is a subjective term while the simple fact is that cell phones are used a lot more than dedicated cameras. I don’t mind lugging my mirrorless around but pretty much everywhere I go I am far outnumbered by cell phone shooters. Facts are facts and that’s sad but true.

The future is innervation in optics which designs haven’t changed much since the beginning of photography. Something like the liquid optics.

Slingers

+1

The liquid optics are very interesting but they have a little way to go yet. I assume they will probably make it into cellphones first.

Vlad

They are indeed very interesting, but as far as I am aware, the main advantage is to have a single adaptable lens. It appears somewhat mitigated by high-resolution sensors.

wadzat

So the future is a system that takes approximatively 20 seconds to boot and register to the phone app ?
This guy obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about… Just seeing things from the marketters point of view, not from the passionates one.

gnuut

If you pass over physical fundamental laws and are able to squeeze high end optics into a smartphone, why not? If not (and I guess that’s more true), DSLR/Mirrorless is here to stay at least for the next hundred years. Or in future everyone regress to dumb, uncreative human beings.

AndrewR

Creative? There’s an app for that…

gnuut

Colorfilters are not creative ;-) However, opening your hardware to 3rd party developers can bring some very useful/creative/powerful tools/apps/modes that you never have thought of. I mean, you have your build-in smartphone camera, your default camera app, but what really makes a smartphone interesting are the apps, which whom you can literally do everything and much beyond Google/Apple/Microsoft have thought of.

LensIsAll

Even best optics won’t change the amount of light that hits them. You see – problem with smartphones, and the limiting factor of their image quality is a small size. Not poor optics. Nokia got glass Zeiss lenses – probably a most precise piece of glass on a market – yet they don’t come close to the DSLR image quality, competing with compacts or some small-sensor mirrorless instead.

just me

Have you seen the Pureview 808 vs D800 comparison? The D800 is still better, but the cellphone performed surprisingly good. Seriously, check it out.

Wayne Summers

interesting. I think once you can trigger off camera flash with your cellphone things will get really interesting. Most bad sensors will still take nice pics with proper lighting. It would be really to try a cellphone and bounce flash.

LensIsAll

Yep, seen it, doesn’t come close to DSLR.

gnuut

Well, first I wanted to write “You’re right and I meant that too.” But then I thought of it … Who says you can’t place a decent APS-C (or even fullframe) sensor inside a smartphone? We have 5-6″ smartphones now. Who says we can’t control electrons jumping? However, if you need a lot of light pass through and general image quality, you just need size and weight. Maybe less than today, but more than a smartphone lens.

LensIsAll

“Who says you can’t place a decent APS-C (or even fullframe) sensor inside a smartphone?” – mr. physics. People want thin cameras, and large sensors make stuff thick. Look even at said Nokia PureView – it’s one of the thickest smartphones on a market despite of having ridiculously tiny sensor comparing to a DSLR.

Juhaz

Who says that you can’t put APS-C sensor inside a smartphone?

Well, nobody. Samsung pretty much already did just that with the Galaxy NX. Does that thing really look something you expect average Mr. Smartphone User to carry around instead of their iPhone?

Dorkus Maximus

So basically what they are talking about is the Samsung Android camera. I’m surprised it’s taking so long to adopt that in pro or semi-pro cameras. It’s been almost 6 years since the iPhone was introduced and we are still using buttons and wheels like cavemen. Hopefully the new Alpha cameras in 2014 introduce this. And I know people will argue that you don’t need that to take great pictures but that’s not the point here. The point is we are not moving forward with technology as fast as we can. SLT was a great leap forward to the feel of having a FAST full time live view with AF – as you do with a phone or P&S. This is why I switched to Sony. I don’t like using a viewfinder when wearing glasses (which is all the time). It’s stupid, I know, but I have more freedom and comfort with the option to use live view. I’ve taken better photos because of it. I”m not sure I’d directly upload to Facebook or whatever because I do edit them in Lightroom first, but wireless transfer would be nice WITHOUT a limiting Eye-Fi card.

LensIsAll

“Samsung Android camera. I’m surprised it’s taking so long to adopt that in pro or semi-pro cameras.”
– Noone is going to adapt it. Android cameras were a failed experiment. Everything but few Androind fanboys rightfully ignored them.

LensIsAll

*everyone, sorry for typo.

gnuut

“It’s been almost 6 years since the iPhone was introduced and we are still using buttons and wheels like cavemen.”

You mean, you want a touch screen on your DSLR? What is it suppose to be good for? You’ve been shooting with an iPhone and a DSLR, right. You noticed the difference in usecase? With an iPhone I just point and shot. I may select focus and exposure point and that’s it. On my DSLR I want as many controls manually as possible because it’s fast and efficient. The screen is for preview only, not for the menu. You either have to clutter you screen with your menu or you have to hide it in several sub-menus. Both is heavily disadvantageous. Furthermore, a touch screen is very prone to environmental conditions (temperatures, humidity, can’t use it with gloves, in rain … etc.). I want my camera to be working flawless everywhere, from iciest Greenland to hottest African deserts and humid Asian jungle.

I’m staying caveman than :-)

Maria

Well, selecting focus and exposure area takes ages without touch screen (instead using buttons, 4 way controller). So touch screen is very useful.
This could be done by eye-tracking but I did not see that implemented yet?

LensIsAll

Aye. Touch interfaces got their own role, but they’re very specialized tools, and so far nothing seems to move them out of their own “box”. I’m yet to see a camera that would have a touch interface I would call “good” – not even to mention “I would swap my compact for that”.

Dorkus probably forgot that a reason for a popularity of cameras like Fuji X100 is their manual interface with tons of buttons. That’s what people want from a camera. Not touch, gesture or voice interfaces.

Dorkus Maximus

You’re right. Clutter can be a problem. I guess what I’m imagining is something of a hybrid system. The Android phones are not perfect, as mentioned, and neither is the T5i. But menus (as good as Sony menus are) can be cumbersome. I like the amount of buttons on a pro DSLR so perhaps it’s not necessary but it would be useful on a prosumer model. Would be nice to customize the menu system and have it set up to access favourite setting you use most often – like smart phones. I’d like to change the focus type on the fly on my A57 but there is no wheel for it. So, the option to have a touch system would be nice or to turn it off for cold climates. I should have realized that as a Canadian, haha. You make some good points. Can we live in a world with buttons wheels AND touch interface?

Steve Jones

“The future” as if there is just one for everybody. There’s really nothing new in those articles. It’s been pointed out for some time that the mass market role of photography is about convenience, fitting in with modern lifestyles, convenience and ubiquity.

Indeed, much the same can be said about video and music. However, there will always be a market for those with specialist requirements or interests. Camera phones are never going to meet the requirements of sports, concert or wildlife photographers for instance. Much the same could be said about moving pictures – you aren’t going to see feature movies recorded on mobile phones. It’s not even confined to professional users – for many serious amateurs, they need the right tool. (As, of course, do the obsessives who care more about the principles of technical perfection rather than the results…).

So the market will fragment, and maybe most of the development money will go to the mass market. However, there will remain a significant market for more “serious” equipment which will still benefit from the technology developed for mass market products (like reduced power usage, lower noise, faster processors, advanced image processing, wifi, gps, better interfaces and much else).

So don’t fear for the future of the top-end. There will always be demands for improved performance and, for some things, the laws of physics will always dictate things like big lenses.

Ryan

Just going to throw in here that I’m a 17 year old reader and disagree with these views of the future.

Saul

What´s interesting is that old farts write about what the “young” generation wants.

It´s bullshit. If you want to know what people in their twenties shoot with – talk to them and see that they use the same stuff like the rest – the more serious they are, the more often they use normal dslrs.

Saul

These old people write what THEY think the future should be and it´s totally wrong – of course. Just marketing and business bs from companies that want us to believe that we would need their products if we want to be “up to date”. Such idiots, it´s unbelievable.

Kevin

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Us “young folk” that are willing to carry around a dedicated camera do still care about those lovely wheels and dials. The A7 and mirrorless absolutely ARE the future. With apps built in, that’d be lovely, but at the end of the day, image quality, build quality, and practical/functional design still trump all.

Ryan

The future is smartphone surely. My superb Sumsung can capture as good IQ as my NEX7. It’s very hard to see differences (except DOF of course).

So almost everything that puts professional photography apart from the amateur… For close, non-moving objects in good light, a contemporary smartphone may be good enough.

LensIsAll

For that even a pinhole camera will do. lol

Don Cox

When you say it is hard to tell the difference, how are you viewing the results? What size prints are you making?

Or are you just viewing on a 2 Megapixel monitor or TV ? Such a low resolution display cannot show the quality of a 24 Megapixel image.

I agree that you can make a nice A3 print from a shot taken on a phone in bright daylight.

gnuut

I have an iPhone (which is been told to have one of the best cameras) and a A77. I did take very good shots with the iPhone, under excellent conditions, portraits, lot of DOF, bright light … simply a very good image. If I hold a similar A77 photo against it (screen, ~13×18 cm print), the A77 image is a different story! Much more depth (not DOF), details, structure, brilliance … and I’m comparing best-practice vs. average usage.

What I’m saying is: It doesn’t matter on which medium you’re looking at the images. Maybe at screen resolution or small prints, the smartphone’s quality is suffice to you – fair enough. But DSRL’s IQ is better, whatever, whereever.

Zinkplated

I’ve been hearing the same tedious techno crap since I started with Photography in the 70s. Q – what is photogoraphy – what defines the photographic experience? A. it aint the technology – its what you use it for – simple! talent and creativity can make anything work. Whether you use a pinhole camera, a Linhof 5×4, D800e or do it on an Iphone via Instagram very little of what defines Photography and creativity is the outcome of the ‘technology’. It can be part of it if it’s intended or it might not be if the artist doesnt consider it important – the technology doesnt necessarily define ‘photography’.
The other misconception is that film is old and digital is new, linally that might be the case but conceptually a creative artist will choose and use whatever technology best defines and informs their idea, a slide installation can be as effective as a video installation depending on how it’s used and if it’s appropriate to to the project – one isnt more modern than the other.
Manufacturers love the idea of redefining the photographic everytime they release a new product but the reality is that a sexier camera, sharper lens or higher resolution wont make a banal image of a dragon fly on a flower any more interesting, and whats all this crap about Bokeh! Ha! its the out of focus bit. You guys!

DiBok

+1

Vlad

Nicely put.

LW

+1
hear hear!

gnuut

Old man, you’re ruining the show. Get out of the way! ;-)

+1

bigG

Why is it that the future should be seen as an evolution of technology. What is needed is a completely different approach to the image making. Everyone wants to be able to create an image that they have in their minds eye.
What’s the future……
Everything is electronic and computer based.A device that collects the raw data in pure form,no need to select aperture or shutterspeed. This should be able to done retrospectively. I want to decide point of focus, dof,fov,wb etc depending how I see the image taking shape before me. If I want to change perspective to portray and different feel from the same data I want to be able to do it and create different stories from the same image.
This brings quality image making to everyone. Great images will still be created by those that “see” the story.
This is just my thoughts.

Steve Jones

Some of what you talk about is already possible using light-field (plenoptic) cameras, of which the following is an example. You can certainly adjust focal point and DoF later.

There is talk that you’ll see such capabilities in camera phones in the next couple of years. However, you can’t beat the laws of physics. Such approaches have tradeoffs in other areas, so you won’t get the same spatial resolution as you would with a camera which focuses onto a single image plane.

Also, you are rather less than specific over what you mean by capturing data in a “pure” state. That’s rather open to interpretation as it’s is (literally) impossible to capture all the information about every photon emerging from an image as the uncertainty principle gets in the way, albeit from a practical point of view, it’s hardly the most important consideration.

The future of my photography will be just like the past. Going out and meeting people, shaking hands, to retain paying clients.

Jay Steller

Analyses like these are way too simplistic and too one dimensional. For as long as I’ve been in the photo world (since the late 1960’s) there has always been the mass market photo market and then an enthusiast/pro market. The above speaks to the mass market. Back then it was Kodak 126 format, followed by 110 format, followed by the 35mm compact, followed by digital point and shoot followed by cell phone cameras… What the above speaks to is the continuation of that. There is also a higher end tier which the above doesn’t speak to. One can argue all they want about convergence of the low end with the high end but there are always those of us that strive for the best image quality, not just good or good enough image quality. I tend to think most of the people on here, or at least most of those of us passionate enough to partake in these discussions fall in the later category. The future for that market looks different than the mass market future and conflating the two is a fools game.

twoomy

There will always be many different types of photography and many different audiences. For landscape work, architecture, preservation, etc. there will always be a need for high-end cameras with large sensors and interchangable lenses and there will always be people to buy them and use them.

So despite all of the hipsters taking duckface selfies in the bathroom with Instagram on their iPhone, the sky is NOT falling.

Denis

Agree hipsters out real photographers in!
Look it’s simple people like different things, I like Italian you might hate it.
Just because I like it, you won’t eat it

Cameras are the same

Per K

There is only one thing we can be sure of about the future: It will not be as we expect it to be.
Predictions from Allen and Kirk are not very visionary – just following ONE current direction.
There will always be cameras. They will probably have a built-in phone like functionality. The all-in-one concept has been tried with f.i. printer/scanner/fax none of the functions being very good.
I see many young people, art students and others, who want to learn photography and start with film. They are not mainstream but some of them will create great art and subsequently have followers.
Does we really care if it is SLR or mirror-less? Photographers need certian functionality, features and quality. The underling technique does not really matter to us.
What will they look like? Well, nowadays also mirror-less cameras have a “hump”. Maybe the traditional design is efficient and produces great handling and is ergonomically very good.
Differences in design are: SLR-like or rangefinder-like. Then we have box-like and smooth curve-like. There is also the Sony way with small body + large lens that has been around for at least ten years with few other followers.
I believe there will always be those who TAKE pictures and those who MAKE pictures. The first category will use smartphones – quality does not matter. For the MAKE category cameras will improve in terms of resolution and dynamic range. This will make it possible to create animations within a single shot. One interactive image can tell a story.

ABB

I am sorry, but any view that tries to foresee the future is destined to fail. We do not predict futures, instead we create them. This is what SONY is doing.

Eisenvater

for a lot of people… big camera means big photographer, so nothing will change … lol

ItDoesNotMatter

and for some mean big sensors
i wonder why barry has not mentioned yet that the future is 96 MP (at least)

Pete

I think the future of photography must be smartphone too. Even at present, Nokia 54 mega pixels produces IQ that can be compared to the plastic crap D800e.

Kevin

Actually the Future of Photography is a Cell Phone that is Tattooed and Pierced. There be a pierced screen and a tattooed phone cover that is integrated right into the phone, and it will be painful.

I think when Kurt uses to term ‘new generation of photographers’ pretty liberally.

He seems to be speaking about the ‘general population’ of picture takers. Certainly the trend there is toward small cameras and smartphones.

But is anyone who takes a photo a ‘photographer’?? Maybe…

However, there will always be a small sub-set of photographers who are more passionate about their photography. This group, often called ‘enthusiasts’ do NOT want to take or make images like ‘the general public’.

In fact, to the *contrary*, enthusiasts want their images to STAND OUT from the mass of images that flood us daily.

So what will happen as smartphone cameras get better and better, and the flood of images from them get greater and greater? Simple: enthusiasts will demand even better cameras that produce even better image quality. And it likely won’t be a smartphone.

LensIsAll

Jack of all trades, master of none.
That’s an issue with smartphones.

Greg

While I think the authors make some good point they are definitely looking at near to mid term changes. Given recent advances in electro-optics (namely metamaterials), the camera of the future may more likely shaped by those engineering advances. I’d actually wouldn’t be surprised if Sony is dedicating some money into commercializing these advances in science.

Nadien

It’s like I always said:

Sony could be the first company to offer a good camera for the instagram generation:

They just have to come up with a RX-100 MkIII with an integrated smartphone, firmware based on Android.

They could put this thing out in 8 weeks, they are just too blind to see the opportunity.

Hans

ask yourself. You really want to make phonecalls with the RX100?

Sony has gone the right way with the QX series. Please God beware us from having to boot crappy android on our cameras.

Zeiss

Kirk … i am 54 old … so forget the Future and give me a Zeiss prime in a Sony a7r body ;)

grant torres

The future is google glass – contact lens edition!

Nic

The future is.. E mount Xperia phone.
It is feasible today.

Mandrake

I think these dudes need to research what’s available in today’s market before writing articles that make them look really out of touch.

Contact me! (Andrea)

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